


breathe

by fairyfires



Category: Sally Face (Video Games)
Genre: Also the first time Travis says he loves him, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Because in this household we stan supportive and loving relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, No demons or ghosts, Panic Attacks, Sal lets Travis see his face for the first time, Self-Esteem Issues, a little venty im ngl yall, or cults tbh, rated for language, sal has a hard time breathing with the prosthetic on when he has panic attacks, so travis convinces him to take it off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 03:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20057482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairyfires/pseuds/fairyfires
Summary: He let go.The prosthetic slid off of his face, and Sal held his breath as he waited for the inevitable. The silence came crashing back in like a wave breaking on the shore, and Sal hated it even more than he had last time.Travis was staring again.





	breathe

Sal was not accustomed to silence. 

All his life, there had been some sort of sound to accompany him. There was never a time nor a place where he was entirely alone with the quiet. 

His mother’s humming was among the first; then, the click of a keyboard from his father’s office after she had gone, solemn and heavy. Shortly after had been Gizmo’s purring by his head, or his meowing at Sal’s feet in the kitchen. Later on, it had been Larry’s fingers drumming against the desk during class, or the quiet _ snap _ of Ash’s Polaroid as they walked by the lake. Then, there had been the steady sound of rain pattering against the window of Travis’s dorm as the credits of a movie rolled unnoticed on the computer beside them. Most recently, it had been Travis’s heartbeat.

Now, lying in bed with only the sound of his staggered breathing to keep him company, he realized how much he _ hated _it. The silence in his room was as unkind as it was unfamiliar. It was a stranger to Sal; and one that he didn’t trust.

Sal coiled his hands into his hair. He should have been used to the nightmares. 

They were a constant companion to him; no different from his scars or his shadow. Sal had thought himself immune to them. He had thought that there was nothing left hiding in his subconscious that could scare him; nothing his memories could dredge up that could shake him any worse than they already had. 

He had been wrong. 

Sal couldn’t pinpoint what it was about the nightmare that had gotten to him; he couldn’t even _ remember _most of it. He could only grasp at the concepts. An empty hospital that smelled of tea and blood. An ambulance abandoned in a parking lot. Broken humming of a lullaby from the dark, and a dog’s barking echoing off of the walls. 

But the sheer terror that had gripped Sal when he woke, feeling phantom hands and phantom bandages and phantom _ teeth _all over his skin–

Sal took a shuddering breath, and rolled himself up onto the edge of his mattress before the panic could pin him down again. Usually, he was perfectly content being alone after an episode. He preferred to lick his wounds in peace; he didn’t like bothering anyone with something he could just as easily take care of by himself. 

But tonight, he just… he couldn’t do it. 

Sal couldn’t stay there. He couldn’t be alone in the dark, in the silence. 

Sal got to his feet, scooping up his prosthetic and his key card from the bedside table. He didn’t bother with his glass eye. His hands were shaking too badly to be useful, anyways - he could barely even work the clasps of his prosthetic behind his head. If he fumbled with his glass eye like that, he’d only end up dropping it. 

Sal couldn’t get out fast enough; but he held onto the handle of the door until it had closed fully behind him. He had to move quietly. The last thing he wanted was to disturb any of the other students. The sun hadn’t risen yet, from what Sal could tell - and the AP bio major two doors down would _ kill him _if Sal cut into his precious few hours of sleep.

His eye darted up and down the hall, lingering where the shadows laid the thickest. Sal wasn’t sure what he expected to see there - for the dark to take shape and rush up to swallow him, or for a great dog with yellow eyes to charge him with foam flying from its snapping jaws. 

He could still hear the fucking thing barking in his head.

Sal let out a shaky breath, bare toes scrunching against the worn carpet. He clenched his fists as he let go of the door, and scampered down the hall with his knees locked and strides stiff. 

He kept his pace measured in spite of the feeling of a malicious _ Something _just half a step behind him, breathing down his neck. Sal knew nothing was there; but he also knew better than to turn and look. His brain had a funny way of playing tricks on him in the dark. 

When Sal reached the last door on the left, a new form of dread settled in the pit of his stomach like a block of iron. 

He balled his clammy hands up into the front of his sleep shirt as he stared at the name tag on the door. Sal wondered how it was that no demon lurking in the dark could have ever been half as foreboding to him as that unassuming sticker.

_ Travis P. _

At the beginning of the semester, the same sticker had been on every door. Most everyone had removed them by the end of the week. A few had replaced them with tiny dry erase boards, or stickers of their own. Sal’s door was adorned with a little crayon doodle of himself and Soda that she had made for him the week before he moved out of Addison Apartments. 

Travis was the only one to leave the original sticker up. Sal had always wondered why, but he’d never gotten around to asking. 

Now, that plain white sticker felt like the scrutinizing eyes of an unconvinced jury; a gavel hanging midair before it sounded his sentence into the dark. 

Sal gripped the front of his shirt tighter, squeezing his eye shut. He was just being paranoid for no good reason. Everything was fine. Travis wouldn’t be mad. _ He wouldn’t be mad. _

He tried to breathe a little more evenly, but it seemed his anxious heart had other plans. Sal couldn’t hear his own thoughts over its pounding anymore. He’d broken out into a cold sweat at some point; his shirt stuck uncomfortably to his back, and it felt _ suffocating_. 

It was all too loud. Too much. 

His skin wasn’t fitting right over his bones, his clothes felt like barbed wire on too-raw nerves, his fluttering pulse was making him feel nauseous, and… 

He had to put an end to this. 

But Sal couldn’t pry his hands out of his shirt. 

He didn’t want to bother Travis. It was just a stupid dream. Just a stupid panic attack. He didn’t want to make himself into an inconvenience; he didn’t want Travis losing sleep over him - over _ nothing_. 

It was just a nightmare. He’d had a million before, and he’d have a million more. There was no reason for him to involve Travis in this just because he was a little scared.

Sal hiccupped, and the prosthetic pulled uncomfortably against his face. 

Fuck. Fuck fuck _ fuck_, if he started crying with it on, he wouldn’t be able to breathe, and—

Sal reached up, hand still tangled in his sleeve, and knocked on the door quickly.

Sal strained his ears in a bid to hear the telltale signs of Travis waking. Sometimes he could hear the shuffle of sheets when he first woke up if he listened carefully enough; or he’d hear a muffled _ thump _as Travis half-fell out of bed, his legs still tangled in the blankets. 

But nothing was filtering through the dissonance of his own sharp breathing. It sounded like a storm in the middle of the hall, like rain and wind and branches whipping against a shuddering window. 

And to Sal, it was starting to sound like the panting of a dog with crooked ears and a dirty snout.

Sal kept knocking. If he kept knocking, maybe he wouldn’t hear the muted sounds of the dog stalking him in the dark - and maybe Travis would get to him a little faster, open the door a little sooner, save him from the faceless fear that was wrapping itself around him like spiderwebs. 

When the door swung open, Sal froze as if his joints had all stopped working at once. Travis stood in the doorway, hair tousled and eyes bleary. He was slouching. He didn’t look happy; and that sunk Sal’s turning stomach even lower.

“_Sal_, I said to wait a fucking minute,” Travis snapped, words slurred with sleep. 

Sal took a step back, his bare foot scuffing against the grimy carpet.

Travis paused, dropping his hand from the door as he took in the scene before him. The annoyance in his eyes melted like ice in the sun, and the concern that set in after came as suddenly as a clap of thunder in the night. Sal wasn’t sure if he liked the worry any better than the agitation. He’d never really liked it when people worried about him. 

“... Sally?”

Sal took another step back, and his hands wound up uselessly into the tangled hair at either side of his face. Sal didn’t like not having his pigtails in. He should have tied his hair up before coming over. He should have brought hair ties with him; but he hadn’t been thinking that far in advance when he’d fled his room.

He didn’t think hair ties could fix this, though.

Sal choked on a sob, and the prosthetic pulled again. It felt like it was vacuuming to his nose, cutting off his oxygen, even if he knew that it wasn’t. He _ hated _that feeling.

“Fuck,” Travis huffed. “_Fuck_. Okay.” Running a hand through his hair, Travis shuffled forward, holding the door open with his hip. He reached out to snag the sleeve of Sal’s shirt with one hand, and Sal followed without a complaint. 

Travis wrapped an arm around his shoulders once the door clicked shut behind them. He pulled Sal against his side, walking them farther into the room and kicking stray books out of their way as he went. Travis guided Sal down onto the mattress by his shoulders wordlessly, and for a moment, Sal felt like he could breathe again - Travis’s touch was grounding, an anchor to keep him still against the shifting waters and rough waves - 

until, once again, he couldn’t.

Travis kneeled on the floor in front of Sal, sitting between his knees quietly. His elbows came to rest lightly against Sal’s thighs as his hands bracketed his sides, almost as if Travis meant to hold him together; to keep him in one piece. Sal was ever-aware of how his ribs caught and heaved with his breathing against the palms of Travis’s hands.

And Travis was staring up at him with something in his eyes that Sal only knew to call heartbreak.

And Sal didn’t deserve that. 

He didn’t deserve Travis, or his love, or his help, or - _ any _of this.

Sal’s head dropped down onto Travis’s, and he could feel the barrier of the prosthetic between their foreheads like a concrete fucking wall. 

When he started crying this time, he couldn’t stop.

Travis rose up onto his knees slowly, bringing himself back to eye-level with Sal. One of his hands brushed against the side of the prosthetic like a whisper, his fingertips running along the line between his two faces gingerly. Sal could barely feel it between his wild hair and the beginnings of nasty scar tissue, but that subtle pressure alone was enough to make him look up. 

He could feel a new bandage around one of Travis’s fingers. He wanted to kiss it better.

“Sally, c’mon… you have to breathe…” Travis brushed his thumb over the cheek of the prosthetic as if he was touching Sal’s skin. Usually, it didn’t bother him, but in that moment - in that moment, wanting comfort more than anything else, it was enough to sting like salt in an open wound all the way down to Sal’s very bones. 

He hated that he couldn’t feel Travis’s touch through the prosthetic. But it was no fault of the prosthetic, really. He wouldn’t be able to feel him through the scars, either. 

Travis squeezed his shoulder. “Sal? Deep breaths, come on - can you even hear me?”

Travis didn’t sound annoyed; just exhausted. Sal didn’t think he deserved _ that_, either. He nodded anyways. 

“Good,” Travis sighed. “Can you breathe?”

Sal shook his head, and he meant it. 

The condensation building up on the inside of the prosthetic was stinging the dry skin between his scars uncomfortably. His rapid breathing was still tugging it against his face, and it was starting to make him lightheaded. His whole fucking face hurt, just like it _ always _did when he cried with the prosthetic on.

Travis paused, leaning back just far enough that Sal almost lurched forward to follow. His hand brushed through the blue hair that had come loose from the straps, the messy locks sliding between his fingers slowly. 

Sal realized a moment too late that Travis had wedged a thumb under one of the latches. 

Sal jerked upright, one of his hands darting back to grab Travis’s wrist - but he came up short when he caught Travis’s eyes. 

Travis was just… _ staring at him_. He wasn’t smiling, but Sal could read it in his eyes; the love, the worry, the hurt. He was looking at Sal as if he was the only star left in the sky to break up the inky nothingness; a lighthouse in the night to guide him home. 

And he was looking at Sal like he feared that light was about to put itself out and plunge itself into the stormy sea below. 

He didn’t notice the first latch coming undone between his fingers until the bottom of the prosthetic loosened. 

“Sally Face?” Travis whispered. 

Sal watched him, uncertain. Travis leaned forward, his nose brushing against that of the prosthetic almost tenderly. Sal felt his breath hitch again when a defeated smile pulled up the corners of Travis’s lips, never quite reaching his tired eyes. He looked almost as nervous as Sal felt. He wished Travis didn’t seem like he was at war with himself so often. He wished he had the words to help him win the fight.

And even quieter, Travis whispered, “... I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

It was barely audible - Sal had just barely caught it above his own sniffling - but it felt loud enough in his weary heart that he didn’t hear the second _ click _.

Sal’s hands came up just in time to keep the prosthetic from slipping.

The panic surged back into his blood like a wildfire. Sal pressed the prosthetic against his face as if he meant for it to stay there permanently. His good eye wide, he stared at Travis through the eye hole and through the loose net of his own trembling fingers, too scared to even blink. 

With those lost eyes of Travis’ peering back at him just as cautiously, he may as well have had nothing to hide behind at all. 

Sal couldn’t place a name on the expression Travis wore when he didn’t let go, but… Sal’s heart ached to think that he was capable of doing something that could make Travis look at him like that.

Sal didn’t want that kind of power. He didn’t _ ever _want to put that look on Travis’ face. 

But he already had, and there was no taking it back.

“You can’t,” Sal croaked, his nails scraping uselessly over the prosthetic as he burrowed his face as far as he could into its familiar grooves. It muffled his voice more than usual, but he knew that Travis understood him. His eyebrows had furrowed, and his shoulders had started to steadily slouch.

“You _ can’t_,” Sal insisted desperately. “You’ll start - you’ll look at me - _ differently, _” he said.

_ Like my dad does_, he didn’t say. He let those words rest in his throat like the knot of a noose where they belonged.

Travis curled his fingers under the edge of the prosthetic ever so slightly. 

“I’ll scare you, and… You’ll want me to leave,” Sal continued in a rush. He wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince anymore, but he wasn’t sure that Travis was _ hearing him _ , because he was still holding onto the sides of the prosthetic resolutely. “Trav, you don’t understand, I can’t - I can’t _ do that _right now, I…” 

“I said _ I love you, _Sally Face,” Travis whispered.

“I love you, too, but I…” Sal stumbled over a hiccup, squeezing his eyes shut. 

There was no changing Travis’s mind now, and he knew it. 

Sal hated that he’d become so jaded, but - he just wanted to prove Travis wrong. He wanted to rip the fucking bandaid off already so it would finally be done with. 

Sal knew what he looked like. He had to look at himself every fucking day. And he knew just as well what kind of visceral reactions people had to his face when they caught him without the artificial one over it. Not even his own _ father _could stomach looking at him anymore; so why the hell should Travis?

But Sal knew there was no hiding it forever. Someday, Travis would see what was left of him, and he would leave.

_ So be it_, Sal thought bitterly.

He let go.

The prosthetic slid off of his face, and Sal held his breath as he waited for the inevitable.

The silence came crashing back in like a wave breaking on the shore, and Sal hated it even more than he had last time. Travis was staring again. His face was carefully blank, but his eyes were wide as they ran along the gnarled tissue of old wounds that had never healed quite right. It made Sal’s skin burn.

Sal felt like he was piloting a crashing plane, watching as the ground below rushed up to meet him. He should have just stayed in bed. He should have just waited it out like he always did, until the panic finally passed him by. He should have never left his room. He should have never gone into the hall. He should have never knocked on Travis’s door.

It happened in the blink of an eye. 

Travis surged up all at once, and he kissed Sal like he couldn’t feel where the skin had been ripped away from the corner of his upper lip.

He let go of the breath he’d been holding.

**Author's Note:**

> i got rly tired of not finding content i liked for these losers so i make my own now


End file.
